Repackaging the Twelth of July

He notes that history suggests that the ancestors of modern Orangemen found themselves on either side in the 1798 rebellion for instance:

….members of my own lodge, and our American guests, recreated the Battle of King’s Mountain, where Ulster-Scots settlers from the Carolinas and East Tennessee inflicted a crushing defeat on the British, in October 1780; and the Battle of Saintfield, where the United Irish routed the York Fencibles, in June 1798. Men called James, David and John Laird fought in the Battle of King’s Mountain in the ranks of the Ulster-Scots rebels. Interestingly, my brother James, my son David, and I, John, were in attendance at this year’s Twelfth. Although I wore the uniform of an officer of the York Fencibles on the Twelfth, in 1798 there were Lairds on both sides. Such matters are not simply interesting; they highlight the astonishing complexity of the past. We ought to be very wary of brutal simplicities.

And from this he concludes:

This invaluable work – harnessing the experience of the Maiden City Festival and extending the benefits of that experience to the rest of Northern Ireland – was largely the product of the voluntary effort and enthusiasm of Ulster-Scots cultural activists with comparatively meagre resources at their disposal, because our culture is not as generously funded as other cultures. As yet, we do not enjoy parity of esteem or funding which is our right. That must change.

Isn’t it time (on both sides) to come up with a new festival that unites both parts of the community. I don’t think that a festival which commemorates victory over another part of the community can ever unite a people.

Maybe one that’s based on peace and tolerance would be a starter.

la Dolorosa

Isn’t it time (on both sides) to come up with a new festival that unites both parts of the community. I don’t think that a festival which commemorates victory over another part of the community can ever unite a people.

Maybe one that’s based on peace and tolerance would be a starter.

The Dog

I can never understand why the Loyal Orders don’t abandon every single contentious patrade so that they can concentrate on projecting the type of image that Laird talks about.

The contentious ones are a magnet for the UDA/UVF hordes because they are an opportunity to showboat.

Abandon them and these people will stop comming along. Take the moral high ground. Stop anagonising your neighbours. Win Win.

reality check

Yes mr lard oh sorry laird,whatever you say.until the orange order removes its anti catholic ethos and admits responability for all the violence its been linked to in the past i will remain sceptical

Biffo

Yes, a celebration exclusively for protestants here is hardly comparable to a celebration for all French people in France.

It would be if the French decided that only Catholics are allowed to take part in Bastille Day parades.

joe

These events are called demonstrations. Could someone clarify what they are demontsrating against? With regard to making it inclusive, I think we are going mad on political correctness. Protestant culture should be celebrated in Ireland as distinct to add to diversity. However its the manner in which this is done and parading past your neighbours in a deliberate attempt of provocation is not an expression of culture but of naked sectarianism and triumphalism. I don’t believe this is true Protestant culture so let the transformation begin. Beirígí bua.

Biffo

“These events are called demonstrations. Could someone clarify what they are demontsrating against?”

Roman catholicism, presumably.

Oilbhéar Chromaill

In trying to ‘repackage’ theTwelfth, Laird lets the cat out of the bag regarding Ulster Scots. According to this article the Orange and Ulster Scots are intertwined, thus leaving no room for a cross community aspect to Ulster Scots.

As for his focus on America, I’d stay quite if I were him. The evidence suggests that it was the Ulster Scots who brought notions such as white supermacism and the KKK to America.

oops…..

la dolorosa

Olibhear Chromaill – “As for his focus on America, I’d stay quite if I were him. The evidence suggests that it was the Ulster Scots who brought notions such as white supermacism and the KKK to America. “

……. as well as Stan Mallon – think he’s still in some US pentientiary for trying to engage (covertly via a chatroom) with under age girls just before the St Pats Day celebrations a few years ago while he was there on Ulster Scots business and was sidekick to the jovial Lord Laird…….

lib2016

…so to the Orange celebrations of their ‘culture’ – rape, murder, paramilitary organisations et al we can add the Appalachian and Scots-Irish interest in poverty and incest? Some people, some culture!

George

Could it not be repackaged so that the Catholics win the battle in odd years and Protestant in even ones?

There could also be a sort of qualifying cultural battle for all the minority religions and atheists in NI with the winner then going on to win the main cultural event in every seventh year.

Then it really would be a festival for all cultures.

Ginfizz

Yet again we witness the kind-hearted and generous nature of modern Irish nationalism – sneering, deriding and maligning any culture that isn’t Celtic and Catholic in nature.

FYI Oliver, U-Scots in America brought us the Declaration of Independence, opened up the frontiers of the USA and enshrined the notion of religous moderation and tolerance, long before the Irish arrived in Boston.

That particular demographic group has produced at least 13 Presidents and made a significant contribution to the formulation of American society today. I’d be interested to see what “evidence” you can present to substaniate your ridiculous claims.

Such is the fascistic nature of nationalism that any culture/language/difference must be stamped upon until all conform to the national “norm”. This is reflected in some of the comments made on this thread.

So much for parity of esteem.

Ginfizz

Biffo

In actual fact, not everyone in France participates in Bastille Day.

The Vendee was a heartland of Royalism at the time of the Revolution and to this day the celebrations are not observed.

George

Ginfizz, you criticise one jaundiced view and then replace it with an equally jaundiced one of your own.

one man’s “opened up frontiers” is another man’s mass genocide of native population.

One man’s “13 presidents” is another man’s century of slave trading and human bondage.

One man’s “Declaration of Independence” is another man’s violent act of anti-British nationalism.

What was that you were saying about parity of esteem and fascist nature?

(Republican – 18th President 1869-77). Born April 27, 1822, Ulysses Grant was the man who commanded the Union Army in the American Civil War. His mother Hannah Simpson was descended from the Simpson family of Dergenagh near Dungannon, County Tyrone. His great-grandfather John Simpson left Ulster for America in 1760. Ulysses was a Methodist.

Chester Alan Arthur –

(Republican – 21st President 1881-85). Born on October 5, 1830 in Fairfield, Vermont, his grandfather and father, Baptist pastor William Arthur, emigrated to the United States from Dreen near Cullybackey in County Antrim in 1801. President Arthur was an Episcopalian.

Grover Cleveland –

(Democrat – 22 and 24th President 1885-89 and 1893-97). Born on March 8, 1837 in Caldwell, New Jersey, his maternal grandfather Abner Neal left County Antrim in the late 18th century. Grover was the son of a Presbyterian minister and he belonged to that denomination.

Benjamin Harrison –

(Republican – 23rd President 1889-93). Born on August 20, 1833 at North Bend, Ohio. Two of his great grandfathers James Irwin and William McDowell were Ulster immigrants. Benjamin was a Presbyterian.

William McKinley –

(Republican – 25th President 1897-1901). Born on January 29, 1843 in Niles, Ohio, he was the great-grandson of James McKinley, who emigrated to America from Conagher, near Ballymoney in County Antrim about 1743. William McKinley, a Methodist, was assassinated at Buffalo, New York on September 6, 1901.

Theodore Roosevelt –

(Republican – 26th President 1901-09). Born 1885 in New York City, Is believed to have Presbyterian ancestors on his maternal side from Larne, Co Antrim, either the Irvines or the Bullochs.

Woodrow Wilson –

(Democrat – 28th President 1913-21). Born on December 28, 1856 in Staunton, Virginia, Woodrow was the grandson of James Wilson, who emigrated to North Carolina from Dergalt, County Tyrone about 1807. Woodrow’s father, Dr. Joseph Ruggles Wilson, was a Presbyterian minister and he belonged to that denomination.

Harry Truman –

(Democrat – 33rd President 1945-53). Born 1884 Lamar, Missouri. His maternal grandfather, Solomon Young was of Scots-Irish settler stock and moved from Kentucky to Kansas City, Missouri in 1840.

Richard Millhouse Nixon –

(Republican – 37th President 1969-74). Born on January 13, 1913 in Yorba Linda, California, Richard Nixon has Ulster connections on two sides of his family. His Nixon ancestors left County Antrim for America around 1753, while the Millhouses came from Carrickfergus and Ballymoney, also in County Antrim. He died in 1994. President Nixon was a Quaker.

James Earl Carter –

(Democrat – 39th President 1976-81). Born on October 1, 1924 in Plains, Georgia. Scots-Irish settler Andrew Cowan, the great grandfather of President Jimmy Carter’s great grandmother of his father’s side, was one of the first residents of Boonesborough in South Carolina in 1772. Andrew Cowan was a Presbyterian, Jimmy Carter is a Baptist.

William Jefferson Clinton –

(Democrat – 42nd President 1993-2001). Born on August 19th, 1946 in Hope, Hempstead County, Arkansas, Bill Clinton claims to be five times removed from Lucas Cassidy who left County Fermanagh for America around 1750. Lucas Cassidy was of Presbyterian stock, President Clinton is a Baptist. He is the only serving U.S. President to have visited Northern Ireland.

George W. Bush –

(Republican – 43rd President 2001-) Born in Texas 1946, son of President George Walker Bush, is descended on his father’s maternal side from the late 18th Century East Tennessee settler William Gault, who was born in the north of Ireland (Probably Co. Antrim).

So much for a century of slavery!

As for the Declaration of Indepenednce, what part of “we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal”, don’t you agree with?

The difference between some posters and I is that I haven’t openly atacked anyone’s culture or identity, nor have I questioned the contribution that the Irish made to the world. They on the other hand have sought to diminish and belittle U-Scots heritage and culture. One dleightful poster sought to imply that the only contribution which the Ulster-Scots made was the doctrine of white supremacy and the practice of incestous bastardy.

If those comments were made against any other group the people making the would be called RACISTS.

la Dolorosa

Mike – I don’t know how you think having a celebration that unites both cultures is bigoted……. and I am not a nationalist – not that it matters anyway…..

lib2016

Ginfizz

It would appear that you haven’t read many of the threads about Paddy’s Day. Maybe unionists shouldn’t dish it out so generously if they don’t want to be on the receiving end? Here endth the lesson! 😉

George

Ginfizz, I understand your anger at some of the comments but as I said you are replying in an equally jaundiced manner and might I add you are being a little slippery here.

So you are now saying there were, in fact, 20 Ulster-Scot U.S. Presidents, not 13 as you previously stated, of which we can now say 7 were involved in the centry-long maintenance of slavery and human bondage.

“As for the Declaration of Indepenednce, what part of “we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal”, don’t you agree with?”

The invisible bit that meant this wasn’t enacted until a man of courage, Robert Kennedy, brother of the only Catholic Irish-American President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, introduced the Civil Rights Bill in the 1960s so African-Americans wouldn’t have to travel on the back of the bus anymore.

Call me old fashioned but equality means more than words to me.

Mike

la dolorosa,

Apologies, mistaken inclusion of your name in that comment.

George,

On the other hand, in addition to the honourable role played by Bobby Kennedy during, there were Irish Ameriicans such as Eugene “Bull” Connor and Mayor Daley playing a not quite so laudable role. (And to go off on a bit of a tangent for a moment, many historians would say it was the Johnson Administration which implemeted most of the effective measures that lived up to the Kennedy Administration’s rhetoric). I’d imagone Scots-Irish and Irish Americans have been invovled on both sides of most arguments, good and bad, in US history.

Kevin

George

I think you’ll find it was Lyndon B Johnson who introduced the Civil Rights Act in 1964 – piloting the bill through congress in the face of fierce opposition from southern dixiecrats.

JFK was never too keen on the civil rights movement (pace Robert Dalek: JFK – An Unfinished Life) and it was only after much argumentation and persuasion from Martin Luther King that RFK was finally won round to the cause of Civil Rights.

Interestingly Dalek’s book has a very good chapter on how the Kennedys (re) discovered their Irishness prior to JFK’s first congressional run in 1946!

Biffo

Ginfizz

“Yet again we witness the kind-hearted and generous nature of modern Irish nationalism – sneering, deriding and maligning any culture that isn’t Celtic and Catholic in nature.”

“The difference between some posters and I is that I haven’t openly atacked anyone’s culture or identity”

I was doing to do a spiel about hypocracy and double standards, but I don’t need to. You are obviously as full of sh*t as the posters you condemn.

Frank_Black

Ginfizz – I think you’ll find Clinton isn’t the only serving US president to have visited the province. You’ve forgotten all about Dubya’s trip to Hillsborough to meet with Blair back in 2003. That was the time he coined the term “Northern Irelanders.”

At any rate it looks like all the really crap US Presidents has Ulster Scots lineage. Lincoln, Washington, Eisenhower, JFK and FDR being notably absent from that list. Besides which it was the Ulster Scots who introduced Calvinism to the US thereby laying the groundwork for the Fundamentalist Christian Taliban hellbent on dismantling Roe vs Wade and other hard won American liberties.

spartacus

I have to say I get a bit sickened when either ‘side’ tries to lay claim to the glory of their descendants in the US. To the extent that the Scots-Irish played a progressive role in the US, they were the early exiles from the failed Rebellion of 1798 that had the most positive impact. They wer eof the generation of Tom Paine and the Enlightenment, and the best of them embraced the most forward thinking on offer. Most of those who came afterward (and especially the Presidents, you might say) were/are crusty old bigots, much like many of their countrymen. To some extent the Presbyterians were stuck in a tough situation to begin with. The high-and-mighty Anglicans had the best land along the eastern coast and comprised the cream of the slaveholding gentry. The Presbyterians/Scots-Irish were flung into the interior, where they worked smaller plots of less fertile land, usually but not always with few or no slaves. Their location also placed them on the front lines of the Euro-American ‘frontier’, where they clashed with Native Americans frequently.

The taigs were no better, to be honest, except that they came later, got locked into competition for work with free blacks and slaves, and were subject to sectarian prejudice as well. (Thus the crap about laying down the groundwork for religious tolerance is laughable: have a look at the press for Boston during famine time and tell me how much ‘tolerance’ was in the air). The Kennedy boys were at best reluctant converts to civil rights. Mostly they found it a nuisance and wished those uppity negroes would stop their whinging.

Last shot: I wouldn’t call Orange marches celebrations of ‘Protestant’ culture. They may be celebrations of loyalist pathology, or of unonist tradition, but as someone who has spent a good deal of time around Protestants from many parts of the world, black and white, and who would probably have found himself on the radical end of the Reformation if I’d been alive a few centuries back, these marches don’t seem to me to have anything to do with Protestantism per se. Outside of a colonial-settler context they are impossible to make any sense of.

free2016

spartacus – I agree with everything you say except that we may be judging them all rather too much on the basis of hindsight. They (both sides) did what what they thought was right, as they still do.

George

George

“you criticise one jaundiced view….”

Jaundiced? Unless there’s been a radical change in the rules rules recently I think you’ll find that Catholics are excluded from the Orange Order.

Frank_Black

I once had a brilliant idea to revitalise the Orange Order by infiltrating it. Changing my name to Harry Flash and renouncing my already massively lapsed Papist ways I’d become a valued member of a local lodge.

I’d stick at it until I’d finally made my way to the exalted position of Grand Master at which point I’d make a point of appearing in the media as possible explaining the Order’s position using nothing but direct quotations from my hip-hop pioneering name-sake.

“It’s like a jungle out there. It makes me wonder. Home I keep from going under.” And so on.

fair_deal

George

Lyndon Baines Johnson delivered the Civil Rights Act. Kennedy may have intitiated it but then he just let it sit in Congress making no serious attempt to get it passed. LBJ’s political skills (gained as an aide, Congressman and Senator) and willingness to take the political damage in the south was why it succeeded against the strongest opposition seen in the Senate in the 20th century.

LBJ could have done this for Kennedy but he was always treated with contempt by both the Kennedy brothers and they were happy for it to sit in Congress not moving rather than ask him.

Kennedy was fine at making promises and looking good when he made them but poor on delivery. It was LBJ delivered on social programs too not Kennedy.

Ian

” it was the Ulster Scots who introduced Calvinism to the US thereby laying the groundwork for the Fundamentalist Christian Taliban hellbent on dismantling Roe vs Wade and other hard won American liberties.”

Could you explain what Calvinism in particular has to do with the pro-life movement? Murder is a sin regardless of where you hang your theological hat.

Biffo

George (apologies, I didn’t mean to assume your identity there)

“you criticise one jaundiced view….”

Jaundiced? Unless there’s been a radical change in the rules rules recently I think you’ll find that Catholics are excluded from the Orange Order.

Ian

BTW – the vast majority of American fundamentalists are Arminian in their theology

fair_deal

The English Puritans weren’t exactly rushing to establish abortion clinics. The Roman catholic church plays a very active part in the American pro-life movement too.

Ian

There is little point in making relevant comments like that. Ulster prods are the source of all evil wherever they go. If you fail to comply with this notion then this simply demonstrates your own inherent sectarianism.

lib2016

fairdeal

Whatever you post don’t mention the twelfth! (Or the eleventh night!)

fair_deal

lib2016

There are a number of issues that need sorted out on the eleventh night.

belvoir

“There are a number of issues that need sorted out on the eleventh night.”

You’ll need to add the mob attack on a young pregnant woman to the long list.

Mike

” it was the Ulster Scots who introduced Calvinism to the US”

Let’s not mention the English, Scottish, Dutch and German settlers who brought their Calvinism to America eh.

Calvinism arrived in America before the Ulster Scots.

Oilbbear Chromaill

Just off the bat, links between the KKK and Ulster Scot-ism: From Wikpedia:“Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is a term used to refer to a number of past and present fraternal organizations in the United States that have advocated white supremacy, and historically promoted Protestantism to the exclusion of other religions. It was founded by veterans of the Confederate Army in 1866.

In its original incarnation, the Ku Klux Klan sought to reestablish Democratic power in the South, and opposed the reforms enforced on the South by federal troops regarding the treatment of former slaves, often using violence to achieve its goals. The first Klan was destroyed by President Ulysses S. Grant’s vigorous action under the 1871 Klan Act and Enforcement Act.

William Joseph Simmons founded the second Ku Klux Klan in 1915.A second distinct group using the same name was started atop Stone Mountain near Atlanta in 1915 by William J. Simmons. This second group existed as a money-making fraternal organization and fought to maintain the dominance of white Protestants over blacks, as well as Roman Catholics, Jews, Asians, and other immigrants. This group, although preaching racism and known for lynching and other violent activities, operated openly, and had 4 million members at its peak in the 1920s; many politicians at all levels of government were members. Its popularity fell during the Great Depression, and membership fell again during World War II, due to scandals resulting from prominent members’ crimes and support of the Nazis.

The name Ku Klux Klan has since been used by many different unrelated groups, including many who opposed the Civil Rights Act and desegregation in the 1960s. Today, dozens of organizations with chapters across the United States and other countries use all or part of the name in their titles.”

Notice any similarities with organisations known and loved here in the north….? See the above bold type (my emphasis)

The fiery cross symbol is of Scottish origin and is mentioned in Walter Scott’s poem “The Lady of The Lake”.

Among the leading lights of the KKK were Nathan Bedford Forrest (Ulster Scots links never publicised by Lord Laird and Co? Why not?) and William J Simmons (not an uncommon name in ‘Ulster’)

The links are there – I don’t need to join the dots for you.

I resent the accusation that I have a jaundiced view of the Ulster Scots tradition. I also resent its usurpation as a Protestant/Unionist/Orange and very exclusive sect by the likes of Laird, a man who set back genuine Ulster Scots enthusiasts more than anybody else with his zeal to hijack the Ulster Scots language as part of a project to create a culture equivalent to the Irish language culture in the North.

Ginfizz

George

The Kennedys were so tolerant and do determined to achieve equality that they banned Smmy Davis Junior from the Democratic Convention that selected JFK because of the colour of his skin. Lets not also forget the role that your great champion of freedom and liberty Bobby Kennedy played in the Second Red Scare, for a period acting as a right-hand man to that other great Irish American Joe McCarthy.

The Kennedys are a despicable bunch.

beano; EverythingUlster.com

Interesting use of bold type there OC.

I would possibly have highlighted the following:

The first Klan was destroyed by President Ulysses S. Grant’s vigorous action under the 1871 Klan Act and Enforcement Act.

before referring the reader back to earlier comments on President Grant’s Ulster lineage.

Ginfizz

Oliver

“as part of a project to create a culture equivalent to the Irish language culture in the North.”

Of course because there’s only room for one culture – why don’t those selfish Unionist bastards just realise that and accept their place?

Your comment on beano’s excellent point on Ulysses Grant would also be of interest.

George

Kevin and Ginfizz, Speech by John F. Kennedy in 1963 on his decision to enact a Civil Rights Bill, which also covers the American Declaration of Independence quote which started all this:

“We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution. The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities … One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free … Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise … The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, North and South, where legal remedies are not at hand … A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all … Next week I shall ask the Congress of the United States to act, to make a commitment it has not fully made in this century to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law.”

I mentioned Robert Kennedy as he was the only member of the JFK’s Cabinet to push for the passage of an omnibus Civil Rights Act, which provided the foundation for the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.

I don’t find the Kennedys to be any more despicable than anyone else Ginfizz.

True RFK began as a moral zealot and worked in the 50s with McCarthy but he also changed his view on invading Cuba during the Missile crisis, saying the U.S. hadn’t the moral right to preemptively invade a foreign country even if it had nuclear weapons. Bit of a move on from the morality we see today in Iraq.

He was also one of the first U.S. senators to show the moral courage to speak out against the butchery of the Vietnam war, which left millions dead.

As I said, you are terribly jaundiced if the only word you can find to describe the Kennedys and what they did in their lives is “despicable”.

Also, all those Ulster Scots you listed so proudly were ardent believers in the Republican ideal. If 20 U.S. Presidents qualify as Ulster Scots then many of the United Irishmen, the Republicans who stayed at home, were Ulster Scots.

Why have they been airbrushed out of Ulster Scots cultural history? What was that you were saying about only room for one culture?

beano; EverythingUlster.com

George, I agree, they should not be brushed out of Ulster Scots history. I cannot say if they have been or not but will simply say that I don’t see that there is anything contradictory to being an Ulster-Scot Republican (in the true sense of the word Republican of course).

Mike

George –

“Also, all those Ulster Scots you listed so proudly were ardent believers in the Republican ideal. If 20 U.S. Presidents qualify as Ulster Scots then many of the United Irishmen, the Republicans who stayed at home, were Ulster Scots.

Why have they been airbrushed out of Ulster Scots cultural history? What was that you were saying about only room for one culture?”

I sugggest you scroll up and read the original article again, it contains this length quote from Lord Laird:

“….members of my own lodge, and our American guests, recreated the Battle of King’s Mountain, where Ulster-Scots settlers from the Carolinas and East Tennessee inflicted a crushing defeat on the British, in October 1780; and the Battle of Saintfield, where the United Irish routed the York Fencibles, in June 1798. Men called James, David and John Laird fought in the Battle of King’s Mountain in the ranks of the Ulster-Scots rebels. Interestingly, my brother James, my son David, and I, John, were in attendance at this year’s Twelfth. Although I wore the uniform of an officer of the York Fencibles on the Twelfth, in 1798 there were Lairds on both sides. Such matters are not simply interesting; they highlight the astonishing complexity of the past. We ought to be very wary of brutal simplicities.”

I’ve never seen the contribution of Ulster Scots to the United Irish rising ‘airbrushed’, far from it. I’m curious as to why you think it is.

fair_deal

The UI is part of my history. My family turned out in 1798.

The advocacy of an independent Ireland by the Ulster-scots section of the United Irishmen was basically a means to an end, to have their rights satisfied, not an end in itself. For the vast majority of the Ulster-scots community the Act of Union showed itself to provide this. Their politics then moved on and they by and large embraced British Liberalism.

The failure to introduce Catholic Emancipation at the same time enabled Defenderism to begin its transformation into Irish nationalism.

In order to see off the persistent challenges of Irish nationalism, Ulster conservatives and liberals established an alliance that created Ulster Unionism.

Some republicans may like to harken back to over two hundred years ago when an independent Ireland had some protestant support but much better they deal with the present reality and accept our politics moved on.

La Dolorosa

Mike – apology accepted. Thank you!

George

Except they would have called themselves Irish Republicans not Ulster Scot Republicans Beano.

This part of the history of the Scottish settlers who came to Ireland has been airbrushed out by the modern British unionist ideology simply by the use of the term Ulster Scot rather than Scots-Irish.

Irish is such a dirty word for so many unionists today, so dirty there are no more Irish Unionists, simply British ones. Ain’t no green in the Union Jack and all that.

fair_deal

OC

The fiery cross was an invention for the 1915 film “The Birth of a Nation” as a visual device. There is no record of it being used by the Klan during the Reconstruction period.

Simmons copy-cat organisation lifted it from the film. The original Klan had no religious basis only a racial one (for example of the treasurer of the first Klan group was jewish).

“Among the leading lights of the KKK were Nathan Bedford Forrest (Ulster Scots links never publicised by Lord Laird and Co? Why not?)”

If Forrest does have Ulster-Scots lineage, are you seriously advocating Ulster-Scots groups should go around promoting him? I can just imagine the squealing if we had.

fair_deal

George

The original term was Scotch-Irish not Scots-Irish. Scots-irish is a recent development. It was not a label the original settlers applied to themselves but had applied to them by others in America. It was adopted about 100 years later by their ancestors when the Scotch-Irish Society was founded and the term became synonmous solely with those in America.

The term is goegraphically inaccurate. The emigration was almost entirely from the Ulster Counties (the nine county defintion I know you are so fond of) therefore, it is a more accurate term.

The first use of the term Ulster-Scots is over 170 years old so it is not a modern invention. Although there is the famous description of an emigre in the 1700’s which comes close. He described his group of arrivals as “Scots who had bided for a time in Ulster”.

Reg Empey, Michael McGimpsey, Martin Smyth all describe themselves as irish unionists. Paisley also once said “I do not deny my irishness”.

I would remind you all cultural groups have the right to define themselves and what they call themselves.

However, accuracy, false claims and rights why let them get in the way of more pointless stereotyping.

Ukko

“As for the Declaration of Indepenednce, what part of “we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal”, don’t you agree with?”

Words come cheap. I think when people rush to claim kinship with the great builders of America, they are ignoring the harsh reality.

Try reading “Bury my heart at Wounded Knee” by Dee Alexander Brown.

davidbrew

Re:Ulster Scots and 1798.

My maternal family links are to Henry Joy McCracken, and relatives were in the turnout as well. They were a radical, anti-clerical movement, alienated from an administration which discriminated against non-conformists as well as Roman Catholics-definitely nothing like the fascists of SF-IRA.

There are numerous examples of tension between the Defenders and the United Irishmen, with the former having a sectarian agenda, and the latter a radical one. Wolfe Tone ridiculed “poor Pat and his priests”. Within a generation these families were in the vanguard of Ulster Unionism for two reasons- the Union gave them the potential of equal citizenship ( though not immediately the experience) , and nationalism did not abandon its sectarian baggage, as exemplified by that buffoon O’Connell, whose posturing was exposed by his damp squib appearances in Belfast .

And the most recent Ulster Scots Agency publication is on Betsy Gray, a supporter of the United Irishmen killed in 1798, following on from one written on William Drennan, leading UI who died an advocate of the Union. Hardly airbrushing

Incidentally, in 1898 there was a riot at the supposed scene of Betsy’s killing when the Home Rule Party sought to erect a monument to her, and the local presbyterians- descendants of rebels almost to a man- were having none of this attempt to steal their heritage, as they perceived it.

Concerned Loyalist

I was a member of one of the 39 bands accompanying the Orangemen in Londonderry on the Twelfth. I can honestly say that every band and Orangeman that I had the honour of coming across acted in a dignified and respectful manner. We were not the people shouting sectarian abuse and waving tricolours at the Diamond, when band members had actually stopped playing because they had reached the War Memorial, as a respect to the men and women of the local area who died to keep every creed and colour of the United Kingdom free from fascism, not just “us Hun bastards”.

I make no apology for being proud of my Protestant faith. I make no apology for being committed to the age-old cause of Ulster Loyalism. I am not sectarian though and am sick, sore and tired of my co-religionists, who are labelled with this slur for walking the streets that their fathers walked, and their fathers before them walked, and so on and so forth…LOYALTY IS NOT A CRIME!

Concerned Loyalist

It should read “sick, sore and tired of my co-religionists being labelled with this slur”.

trug

You haven’t marched with the Old boyne Island lodge from the Shankill Road, i take it.

This orange order lodge commemorates some of worst mass murderers this country has ever seen. Shankill butchers & uvf commanders

Biffo

“..and nationalism did not abandon its sectarian baggage, as exemplified by that buffoon O’Connell, whose posturing was exposed by his damp squib appearances in Belfast .”

Anyone who thought of O’Connell as a “damp squib” would be advised to invest in a history book.

He was by far the most prominent political personality Ireland produced in the first half of the 19th century.

There is no doubt that he was a hate figure for orangeism.

Though his great achievement is always referred to as “Catholic Emancipation” he emancipated not just Catholics but Presbyterians and all faiths other than the established Church of Ireland.

Interesting to note that in August 1864 when the foundations for the O’Connell monument were laid in Dublin, the orange faction in Belfast commemorated the event by burning an effigy of O’Connell at the Boyne Bridge, Sandy Row.

Belfast also lost quite a few of it citizens to sectarian violence in August 1864.

davidbrew

“He was by far the most prominent political personality Ireland produced in the first half of the 19th century.”

I have loads of history books, which tell me that the Duke of Wellington- a rather more important figure in world politics you might agree- was Irish. Oh, sorry, he was a British-Irish Protestant, and therefore -naturally- not really an Irishman. My mistake.

And I don’t recall O’Connell achieving Presbyterian emancipation- which might have commended itself to Dr Henry Cooke,and other opponents. The last discrimination against Presbyterians-particularly the staus of their marriage services- persisted into the 1850s-well after his death in 1847. I’m not saying he was a damp suib, merely that his attempt to appeal to non-Roman Catholics was a failure, just like his campaign for Repeal.

Next you’ll be telling us that Parnell wasn’t a bicycle thief

Biffo

“..the Duke of Wellington- a rather more important figure in world politics you might agree- was Irish. Oh, sorry..”

Yes, quite. If he had been born in a stable it wouldn’t have made him a horse.